Be sure to choose your path wisely

Tuesday

Sep 24, 2013 at 2:02 PM

If you choose to keep reading head to paragraph (A) Otherwise, head to paragraph (Z) and make a clean break of it.

Michael Jonesmjones@stuttgartdailyleader.com

You begin reading this column with no expectations other than Michael Jones will most likely find yet another way to make it idiotic and complicated. Should you continue reading to figure out if he succeeds or should you throw in the towel now, down a quick 12-ounce "adult beverage" or 12 in the hopes that your brain won't be able to tell the difference? If you choose to keep reading head to paragraph (A) Otherwise, head to paragraph (Z) and make a clean break of it.

Of course, the random option of (G) might have something to say about it all...

(A) You've decided to brave the storm of delusion that is Michael's column and wonder just where in the hell he is going with this "Choose (A) or (Z) nonsense. Occasionally this column is amusing, though, so you will give him a chance. Congratulations, you're now officially a reader of this column and will have the great ability to tell people tomorrow that you "made it all the way through but had NO idea what that Louisiana boy was talking about" yet again. Enjoy it! Now then, this week's column is going to be about (B) Michael talking about how today would have been his mother's 62nd birthday or (C) about how once again his dog is trying to kill him by making him go on marathon walking sessions. Please know that paragraph (Z) is always an option. Choose wisely.

(B) My mother would have been 62 today. I'm not sure what she would have made of that fact. Most likely she would have noticed it in passing simply due to the birthday cards or small gifts we would have left her on her chair, but all in all it would have simply been one more day of work for her. The days of my mother's life were marked by the patients she took care of way more than the days, months and/or years on the calendar. Unfortunately now that I have begun talking about my mother the column is incredibly likely to take a sad and dreary turn down "I hope I was a good enough son!" lane. To read how Michael wishes he were a better son, please continue on to paragraph (D) , unless you're just now thinking that it might have been better to skip straight to (D) and read about the dog once again? (Z) is still an option, btw!

(D) Have I mentioned how much walking I've been doing with this silly dog? Every day! Every single day I go to work and then I come home wanting nothing more than to collapse into my chair and relax for just five or 10 minutes but that's not possible because OMG DADDIEZ IS HOME AND ELLIEZ IS HOME AND WHEN ELLIE IS HOME AND DADDY IS HOME AND WE ARE ALL STILL HAVING FEETZ ON OUR BODIEZ THEN THAT CAN ONLY MEANZ THAT IT IS WALKIES TIME!!!! To read exactly where walkies-time has taken us this week just head on down to paragraph (E) or maybe we can talk about something totally different and random? Maybe that can take place at (F)? Yeah, (F). Don't forget the safety parachute of (Z).

(E) ELLIE AND DADDY WALKED AROUND THE SCHOOL AND THEN AROUND THE FENCE AND THEN BACK AROUND THE FENCE AND THEN ON THE GRASS AND THEN BACK IN FRONT OF THE SCHOOL AND THEN AROUND THE FRONT OF THE SCHOOL AGAIN AND THEN WE WALKED AROUND THE BACK OF THE SCHOOL UP ALL THE SIDEWALKS AND THEN THE BACK OF THE SCHOOL AND THEN WE WALKED AROUND THE PLAYGROUND AND BACK AROUND THE FENCE AND THEN WE WALKED ACROSS THE DITCH AND THEN ON THE ROAD AND WE STAYED ON THE ROADZ UNTIL WE TURNED AND THEN WE TURNED AND TURNED AGAIN AND THEN WE TURNED AND WALKED AND WALKED AND WE STAYED STRAIGHT AND THEN WE TURNED AGAIN AND THEN WE WALKED HOME TO THE FENCE AND THEN WE STOPPED! YAYAYAYAY!!! Congratulations, you have successfully read a column by an idiot about how he loves his silly dog. The end.

(F) Have you ever wondered how cream cheese was invented? Did some cow get all fancied up and end up in a swanky restaurant where they kept serving him oodles of lucious creamy deserts so that when he went back to the farm and the farmer milked the cow and then used that milk to make cheese, it turned out to be some sort of super awesome creamy cheese? If so‚ relax and put this column down and have someone call the doctor for you. You have just had your brain explode in your head because you foolishly thought this was all going somewhere. Congratulations, you will have a wonderful career in politics in your future due to your brain issues. The end.

(G) Do you know how hard this is to keep all this silliness going? VERY! I think it's because of how stressful and busy a work day it was Monday. It turns out to be a fact that when you are trying to centralize the production of several newspapers in one location that (oh, I dunno) should your email systems suddenly decide to puke on itself and die a slow and debilitating death‚ it's going to cause troubles. To read how Michael's boss wished she could have handled the situation head on down to paragraph (J), how Michael handled the situation at paragraph (H) or how everyone else not in our department seemed to handle the situation can be found at paragraph (I).

(H) I AM VERY SCARED RIGHT NOW. THE EMAIL IS DOWN AND MY BOSS IS GROWLING IN THE CORNER AND DEMANDING CAFFEINE AND THE BROOM OF THE WICKED WITCH OF THE EAST. I HAVE TRIED TO GET ONE OF MY COWORKERS, JR, WHO SHALL FOREVER NOW BE KNOWN BY THE CODE-NAME OF "JR" TO PROTECT HIS ANONYMITY, TO OFFER UP SODA AND CHOCOLATE TO SOOTHE THE SAVAGE APRIL BUT HE TURNS OUT TO BE MUCH SMARTER THAN I HOPE AND HAS SIMPLY HIDDEN HIMSELF IN HIS CORNER AND TURNED UP HIS HEADPHONES TO DROWN OUT THE CHAOS. SHOULD I GIVE MY BOSS CAFFEINE? IF SO, HEAD ON DOWN TO PARAGRAPH (K). IF YOU THINK THAT'S UNWISE THEN DROP IN AT (L).

(I) "I know that the email is not working and that you have no idea what we've tried to send you repeatedly‚ BUT OMGZ HAVE YOU DONE THE ADS. SURE IT'S ONLY MONDAY AND THE ADS I'M SENDING YOU ARE NOT RUNNING UNTIL FOUR WEEKS FROM NOW BUY OMGZ YOU NEED TO SEND ME A PROOF NOW!! CAN YOU SEND ME A PROOF?? HOW ABOUT TWO PROOFS? MAYBE THREE? CAN YOU SEND ME A PROOF OF THE PROOF THAT I SENT YOU TO PROOF? This goes on all day until we end up at paragraph (J) or maybe, if we're just lucky, at paragraph (N). Don't forget‚ (Z) is still a valid choice!

(J) MANAGER SMASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (The entire department plus the southern side of Arkansas County was demolished in a fiery rage that could not be contained. We're all dead and you are a ghost reading a ghost newspaper. The end.)

(K) AHHHHHH, MANAGER HAS CAFFEINE AND CHOCOLATE‚ YOU ALL GET TO LIVE. Let's get to work, guys! We can handle this!!!! And thus the work was handled in a super happy and expedited manner and we all went home alive and happy. You get to move on to paragraph (P).

(L) WHY DON'T I HAVE CAFFEINE? NO CAFFEINE MAKES MANAGER ANGRY!!! YOU WOULDN'T LIKE MANAGER WHEN MANAGER IS ANGRY!!!! Without her soda there is no choice but to follow through on her dreams and thus you are forced to endure paragraph (J) as reality. The end. Of course, the other possibility is that without the soda and chocolate in her system‚ our manager passed out and we can all safely (AND QUICKLY) jump to paragraph (M).

(M) ARE YOU KIDDING ME? WAS THERE ANY OTHER CHOICE BUT TO COME HERE? Anyways, eventually the mail settled down and was never quite fixed but that was okay because we worked our way through it thanks to determination and dreams of installing a wet bar in the back of our department. If you think we should install that wet bar, (N) is the place where you want to head next. If not, (O).

(N) It'ssns' verarrah niicce at workrz nowowz that we have a wet ababaarr. I didn't' knwow.. hey, hey come here. Hey, no really, come here. I love you mann. I reallyay do. You comeem here everah week and you reaads (hiccup) my collumsns and, I just. I like you, y'know. YOu'r'r genuine. Ilike that. YEeah. (If you think Michael can handle being drunk for the first time in his life, maybe you'd care to take a trip to paragraph (Q) is for you.)

(O) Without a wet bar the department was forced to try to build their own still out of old coffee cans and styrofoam cups. Two coworkers were lost in tragic styrofoam-related accidents, and everyone else decided that it was all too much work and that they could simply go to the bar after work. The end.

There is no paragraph P, btw, because I can't figure out how to make it do the P with the parentheses without it turning into ‚Ñó. Sigh. Look. Let's just go straight to (Z) from here. Okay?

(Q) WRONG. Michael is now dead of alcohol poisoning after drinking one virgin Bloody Mary.

His coworkers tried to inform him that there was NO ALCOHOL IN THE DRINK at all so there was NO WAY TO DIE FROM ALCOHOL POISONING as he was writhing around on the ground yelling something about it being "The BIG ONE, Elizabeth" but then they decided they really didn't care. The end.

(RR) Actually, nah. I got nothing. The end.

(S) Was there ever any road that lead you to option (S) at all in this column? Y'know, I don't think so! Should this random "where the heck did this come from" get its own stupid little story-line at paragraph (T) or should we all just move on with our lives and call it a day?

That's where (Z) comes in handy.

(T) Have you ever noticed just how froggy frogs really look? I mean, seriously? My dog has an insane desire to track down and eat every frog in the known universe that happens to cross her path but for the life of me I cannot figure out why. They are NOT all that tasty looking? They have little, well, froggy eyes and great big froggy lips and they hop around all slimy as if they were just doing some seriously unmentionably things with hair gel and it all just gives me the heebie-jeebies!! And, yes, as a boy growing up in Louisiana my family would go frogging and I've eaten frog legs (and had the joy of seeing my grandfather make the legs dance a jig a dozen times or so) — but still, EW. Let's continue this by hopping over to (U) shall we?

(U) My dog doesn't just like frogs, either? SHE'S GOT A GIANT BUMP ON THE TOP OF HER HEAD BECAUSE SHE RAMMED INTO A WALL AT LIGHTNING SPEED TRYING TO CATCH A FROG. Yeah. Man's best friend is too dumb to NOT SLAM INTO A WALL when trying to hunt the crafty frog that, y'know, hops around in three-inch intervals. Know what? I'm ashamed of that dog now. Let's just end this column here, okay? The end.

(V) Stupid dog.

(W) Stupid frog.

(X) Have I used up all the letters yet? OMG WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING WHEN I STARTED TO WRITE THIS COLUMN?

(Y) Oh yeah, I know what I was thinking. I was thinking "How awesome would it be to have MANAGER SMASH in a column?" Very awesome, it turns out...

(Z) Blah blah blah. Know that the column was probably about dog walks and was full of HYSTERICAL WRITING ALL IN CAPS BECAUSE CAPS ARE FUNNIER, before it all ends in some maudlin point about how family is great or dogs are great or that Michael is sad because he's not an astronaut and will never be because they don't make space capsules that big. That's it.